When I am just a grayscale

"O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted! Behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires."

3 Nephi 22: 11

An Inconvenient Truth

I bought this before I converted because I thought it was perfect. All business, no games.

But once I converted, I was told that even though the sentiment holds some truth, it's much too irreverent and I should put it away. So I did.

But in all honesty, I believe in it too much to be told what to think about it anymore.

Especially in a country where the Texas Rangers can put their religious biases before the Constitutional rights of an entire community.

Remember the Children

I bought this from the Holocaust Museum last summer because I know what it's like to have every adult in your life ignore you entirely as they fight their own battles--especially the one where they pretend to know what's best for you.

And as I sit here thinking about the 400+ Fundamentalist Latter-day Saint children that were just "removed" from their parents with an affidavit based entirely upon second-hand information, I can't help but notice the relationship between the actions of the Texas state government and all the times the Nazis took children away from their parents.

My heart goes out to the children, because they're the only ones that always seem to stand blameless in situations like these.

If only being innocent was enough to protect them.

Forget not the courage of Nauvoo

A model of the Nauvoo temple in the Washington DC visitor's center--made entirely of Legos.

Walls

"Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise."

Isaiah 60: 18

A funny mental image

"So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city."

Joshua 6: 20

My AP Literature Test Simulation

"The eyes and faces all turned themselves toward me, and guided me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room."

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, over against the king’s house: and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house, over against the gate of the house.

And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she obtained favour in his sight: and the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther drew near, and touched the top of the sceptre."

Esther 5: 1-2

I wrote my open-ended essay about The Bell Jar. An interesting parallel exists between Plath's Esther and the Biblical Esther in that both stories hinge upon a single moment of judgment. But in Plath's novel, she ends the story without finishing the judgment, allowing the reader to judge for herself whether Esther has truly cracked the bell jar.

A spectacular book. Definitely worth reading.

Seek UNTIL ye find

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal;

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

3 Nephi 13: 19-21

The Relief Society

This statue is in the visitor's center of the Washington DC temple. I asked one of the sister missionaries back when I was first baptized what this statue was supposed to represent. She explained that when the Relief Society was formed, Joseph Smith gave Emma all of the money he had on his person in order to establish it--showing how the Relief Society has been an organiztion for and run by women since the very beginning.

I saw that same sister missionary some time later, and we recognized each other right away. We talked, and she taught me something about service that I will always remember. She was from Brazil, if I remember correctly, and I really hope I will see her again some day.

Down the Drain

"Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.

There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.

(For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)

Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?

Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water

that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

John 4: 6-14